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(It’s
Island Week 2 here at GSS, which means we’ll mostly be posting
about Islands. For about a week.)

Pollepel Island is located in the Hudson River, New York. A
characterless lump of rock, it would have been completely
uninteresting had Francis Bannerman not decided to build a castle
on the island, and then fill it with weapons…

This was in the late 1800s and Bannerman, a Scottish immigrant,
and the world’s largest buyer of surplus military equipment was
doing a roaring trade in munitions. When he purchased most of the
captured goods from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_American_War Spanish
American war he needed somewhere to store it all, preferably
somewhere where large amounts of gunpowder would be safe.

So he purchased Pollepel Island and set about building an
imitation Scottish castle of his own design, complete with lookout
turrets and a moat. The buildings took 17 years to complete and
feature giant concrete text across the side which reads
“Bannerman’s Island Arsenal”.

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Years later, the family sold the island back to New York State
who for a short time operated tours around the castle. Although all
the munitions had been removed, in 1969 a fire of “unknown origin”
destroyed the building’s interiors, making it too dangerous to
visit. Today, a trust group hope to stabilise the castle and
re-open it for tours.

More info on the castle at its http://www.bannermancastle.org official website, the http://www.hudsonriver.com/bannerman.htm Hudson river
site, and of course http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollepel_Island Wikipedia.

Thanks to Marc Cohen and Bill Parco.

Tags: , Island, Pollepel, week